


Gifts in Time and Space

by Sadbhyl



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:17:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reality of the past have seeds in the now</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gifts in Time and Space

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published June 6, 2006

Rose gave Mickey the ten cent tour of the TARDIS and set him up with a room of his own, then left him to his own explorations and went to find the Doctor.

He was up to something, she could tell. He had that kind of quivering vibration to him he got whenever he had an inspiration. And after the last couple of days, she felt insecure enough not to want him out of her sight for long.

She found him in a workshop some ways from the console room.

“What you doing?”

He didn’t look up from where he was working, the glow from the sonic screwdriver reflecting off his glasses. “Something I should have done a long time ago, apparently.”

He was working on another of those tin dogs. But this one didn’t seem as streamlined as the one they had just left behind with Sarah Jane. “This looks like the one you blew up yesterday.”

“It is.” He adjusted another wire and fused it.

She took in the net wire ears and the chiclet control panel and the scotch plaid collar. “No, I mean it looks exactly like the one you blew up yesterday.”

He blew out a breath and stood up, adjusting the access panel back into place before turning to Rose. “It is.”

“How is that possible?” she asked, uncertain. “I mean, he was in a million Krillitane covered pieces. We were lucky to find enough of his head to download his memory data into the Mark IV, you said.”

“Yes, that’s true. I just pulled this one out of storage.”

She glared at him. “Okay, now you’re just makin’ no sense.”

With a sigh he turned to lean back against the work bench, crossing his arms over his chest. “I never gave K9 to Sarah.”

“Well, you must have done.” He wasn’t making things any clearer. “She had him in the boot of her car, all come apart and such.”

“Yes, she did.” His nod turned into a negating headshake. “But I never gave him to her. Not yet anyway. But we’re going to take care of that now, aren’t we, K9?” This last he said with a flourish as he bopped the robot on top of the head.

With a whirr of motors and winking lights, K9 once again came to life. “Master?”

The doctor crouched down in front of him to look into his digital eyes. “How are you feeling?”

There was a hum of processors and K9’s ears waved back and forth as though looking for signals before he came back with, “All primary and secondary systems are within point oh two increments of factory specifications.”

“I’ve shamelessly neglected your walkies, haven’t I?” He chucked the dog under the chin. “Well, I know someone who will take care of that.”

“Master?”

The Doctor grew serious. “K9, you are going to have a new mistress now. Her name is Sarah Jane Smith, and you are to answer only to her and look out for her best interests, understand?”

“Affirmative,” the robot nodded.

“Good. Now, if I know Sarah, and even after all this time I think I do, she’s going to ask you a lot of questions about me. Just tell her I’m well, and I send you there with my love. Can you do that?”

K9 nodded again. “Affirmative.”

“Good dog.” The Doctor patted K9’s head affectionately. “Go to sleep now. Your mistress will wake you up when it’s time.”

“Yes, Master. Good bye, Master.” And his eye lights dimmed again.

With one last, sad caress, the Doctor said quietly, “Good bye, old friend.”

Rose watched as the Doctor bundled up the dog and loaded it into a military looking crate. “Now, let me get this straight,” she tried to clarify as he began driving nails into the lid. “You blew up her dog yesterday, this morning you gave her a brand spanking new one, and now you’re going to give her the dog she’s had for twenty years, the one we blew up already? Isn’t that a para…paradox?”

“Not really.” He didn’t look up, methodically pounding in one nail after another. “He was already present in the timeline when we crossed it. We didn’t interfere with that.”

“We blew him up,” she emphasized slowly.

“Well…” He shrugged. “Sometimes temporal mechanics requires a bit of faith. You can’t always question it too much.”

“Aren’t you the one who keeps telling me to question everything?”

“Well, yes. Just not me.”

Rose wagged her finger at him. “Now that is a paradox.”

“No.” He grinned. “Just good sense. Now come on,” he tossed the hammer aside before she could reply, “help me get this up to the console room.”

The box was awkward but not as heavy as she had expected. Between the two of them, they were able to shoehorn it out the door and head up the hall. Rose studied Sarah Jane’s name stenciled on the top. “So,” she asked hesitantly, “is there a tin dog in my future?”

His eyes didn’t waver from hers. “Do you want one?”

“Dunno,” she shrugged. “I’ve never had one, have I?” She thought about it for a moment. “Course, if I got one, that would mean you’d left me behind somewhere, wouldn’t it?”

“Possibly. Some of the people who have traveled with me did leave of their own free will, you know. And some were taken away.” His eyes dropped at last. “Some died.”

She could sense how much the admission had cost him and tried to cheer him up. “But not Sarah.”

“No, not Sarah Jane.” He drew a deep breath and managed a weak smile. “I think she’d be traveling with me still if I hadn’t had to leave her off. She was a lot like you, you know. Clever and too curious for her own good.”

“How long ago was it? That you had to leave her, I mean?”

“Oh, thirty years for her I should think, give or take a few years.”

“And for you?”

“About ten times that.”

“And you’re just now getting around to giving her the dog?”

He didn’t answer, just continued guiding them through the maze of corridors leading back to the console room.

His words gave her too much to think about. What did it say that he’d waited so long to do this for a woman he so obviously cared about? A woman he readily compared to Rose? If she left, would he spend three hundred years and multiple regenerations mourning her as well? Did she want him to?

They finally made the console room and set their physical burden down. The rest Rose decided was too big to think about right now. Crossing her arms over her chest, she eyed him sternly. “The sonic screwdriver.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Pardon?”

“If you chuck me out without so much as a by your leave, I want the sonic screwdriver.”

Something in him seemed to relax as he pursed his lips doubtfully. “I don’t know. Do you know how hard those are to come by? I’m not sure I could part with it that easily.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying it’s more important to you than I am?”

This time when he smiled, it was almost genuine. “Who knows, maybe you’ll end up with the TARDIS.”

She crossed her arms. “Fat lot of good that would do me, when I can’t even fly it.”

“Yes, but you’d have the biggest walk-in closet in, well, just about anywhere, I’d imagine.”

She couldn’t resist grinning in return.

Just then Mickey came stumbling back in, interrupting their rapport. “There’s a swimming pool in here!” he exclaimed. “And not one of those regular ones, one of the big, fantasy ones, with waterfalls and cliff diving and such! You seen it?”

“No, not yet.” She looked back to the Doctor, whose smile was already fading.

“Well, come on then.” Mickey held out his hand to her. “Let’s go before I forget the way.”

She hesitated. “Doctor?”

But the moment was lost. “Yeah, go ahead you two. There are swimming costumes and towels in the changing room behind the flume.”

“What about you?” She cocked her head. “Care to join us?”

“Nah.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the console. “I’m late for an appointment with an old friend.”

She could tell he wanted to be alone, so she took Mickey’s hand and let him guide her out. In the doorway she couldn’t help but pause and turn back.

He hadn’t moved, his body relaxed, his eyes fixed on the box. But she could tell he didn’t see it, that instead he was lost in the memory of the dozens, maybe hundreds for all she knew, of others who had traveled with him over all those centuries.

She decided she was just grateful to be one of them.


End file.
